Chicago Trip!

Sorry I've taken so long to update this blog.  We've been pretty busy 'round these parts!

Over Labor Day weekend, we drove out to Chicago to see Jenny, Louis & Blake!  J had to work on Friday, so I made plans to meet with some women I've become close to on the internet.  Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but I've bet some truly wonderful women since getting pregnant with M!

Friday, we met up with Victoria & Piper and Steve, Jenni & Nate!  Jenni was so nice to host our get together and even fed us all lunch!  They have a beautiful condo in Chicago (totally jealous).  I hope to be able to see them often when I am in town.  Without further adeau, here are some of the pics:

 The girls!

 Playing together!

 Peek-a-boo!

 They had some serious biznas to discuss.

 Nate has an awesome set of car keys that M loved!

 Aww!  I think someone has a crush! <3 br="br">

 Nate wanted M's ear.  So, he tried to rip it off.

 Victoria, Piper, M & me!

 Nate, Jenni, M & me!

 MISO! 

Friday it ended up taking us 3 hours to get back to Cary from the city (geez!!!).  We headed straight over to see Jenny, Louis & Blake.

Saturday we hung around the house, went to the park to swing, saw some duckies & fish, had some yummy lunch & dinner and let the kiddos play.  Check out Jenny's pics of the day here. Sunday, Jenny so wonderfully put together a little party so I could see people from college and their families!  It was SOOO much fun!  Here are some shots from the BBQ at Dan & Barb's house!

 Baby Caravan!

 Aunt Jenny & M!

 Blake LOVES his grandpa...

 ...and got quite jealous when he was picking up M!

 Blake, Dan & M

 Oh geeze!

 M, me, Blake, Jenny, Raegan & Katie!

 Jenny, Katie, Mary & me.

And the best picture of the whole trip you ask?

Future blackmail!!!

Also...I hope to be able to take one of these every year!

September 2011 & September 2012!

Getting Big!!!

M turned 36 weeks on August 1st (I know, I know, I'm behind).  Officially outside the belly for 2 weeks longer than she was inside!

Here's how she's changed:

I can't believe how big she's getting.  And yes, "big" is a relative term considering she's about the size of a 4 month old.  But, looking at how far she's come, she's HUGE!

M's first accident...

...and trip to the ER.

I picked her up from daycare over my lunch hour because my co-workers have been asking me for a while to bring her in for a visit. We were in one of the offices and she was crawling around. She pulled herself upon a file cabinet. Let go, and fell down on to her butt and started screaming. I went to get her and her hand was a pool of blood. I still don't know how she cut herself, but I also didn't spend a lot of time inspecting the file cabinet.

I spent about 15 minutes putting pressure on her finger to get the bleeding to stop and it wouldn't. There was so much blood I couldn't even get a good look at how bad the cut was. So, I had my sister drive us to the ER while I sat in the back continuing to apply pressure to her hand. At some point while we were waiting in the ER room the blood stopped and she fell asleep. Likely from being exhausted from screaming for like 2 hours.

The doc made it bleed all over again when he came in to look at it. We were hoping we could get away with some glue, but the cut is too big. It took me, my sister, the nurse & the doctor all restraining her to keep her still enough for the doc to put the stitches in. She was screaming her pain scream and I was crying. It was horrible. I don't ever want to do that again. Ever. The doc almost gave up after 1 stitch because she was so difficult to hold and her fingers are so tiny. But, she needed another one.

So, she has dissolvable stitches and has to wear this big mitt thing on her hand for 3-4 days until it's "tacked" back down. The cut is a huge horseshoe shape that takes up the entire pad of her right ring finger. We have to change the dressing 2x a day and keep her pumped full of meds for at least the next 24 hours. She kept trying to eat the mitt and kept getting it stuck on her teeth so she has a sock on her hand now.

It was pretty traumatizing.  I don't ever want to experience that again.  I am pretty sure I was crying as hard as she was.  I guess the silver lining is that she probably won't remember it. 

8 Months Old!

Madeleine is 8 months old!

I can hardly believe it!  In the last month my little one has learned to crawl, to pull up on nearly everything in sight, to go from a crawling to a sitting position, to stand for a few seconds without holding on, and to kneel.

She is still such a happy baby.  She has the best personality and a smile that melts my heart in an instant.  It is so much fun watching her explore her world and figure out how things work.

She wears size 3 diapers and 6 month clothing.  We haven't checked her weight or height yet today, but if I had to guess I'd say she's around 15.5 pounds and 25.5 inches.  She absolutely loves her music table and Zany Zoo.  Violet the dog is her favorite stuffed animal.  She loves bath time as much as ever, although with her trying to pull herself up on the side of the tub it makes for an interesting time for momma.  She loves sweet potatoes and Cheerios.  She gets terribly upset when something is taken away from her or she is not allowed to crawl toward what she's zeroed in on.  Blowing raspberries while eating is probably one of her favorite things to do.  She's not a fan of her pack n' play anymore because it means jail time!  She's been working hard to try and get herself up the step into the kitchen, but hasn't figured it out yet.  

And, here is our standard 8 month photo shoot:

And, the 8 Month Sticker Destruction:

Sorry I am behind!

We've been super busy since Trina got to town!

We went up north for the 4th of July.  It was CRAZY hot, so we ended up spending a lot of time inside because of the babies.  Here are some pics from the trip:

Miss Thang is now crawling all around and pulling herself up on things.  This is her favorite place to be in the house:

She pulls herself up onto the step up into the kitchen, but still hasn't figured out how to get up there yet.  She's mastered the kitchen step at Grandma's, but it's a smaller step.  So, for the time being she is contained in the family room.  I think it's probably about time to get some baby gates tho!

I came downstairs last weekend and found this:

Last weekend, we went to Art in the Park.  Ryan was excited to get a brat from the Big Taste Grill.  We really only made it thru about half of the fair because it was SO hot.  We had a good time, but I think it will be more fun with M is walking and not confined to a hot stroller or in our hot arms :)

Yesterday, Grandma and Grandpa took us all out for ice cream at the Dairy-Go-Round:

 Afterward, we went to back to their house to hang out and we busted out one of M's new toys (don't worry, Trina got one too after spending 785943 hours at Toys R' Us trying to figure out what she wanted).  Since M has been pulling up on everything, we decided it was time for some standing toys. 

Fewf!  That's about it.  Trina got to have a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa last night, so we have to head over there to pick her up soon!  Hopefully Grandpa didn't spoil her too much!

Happy Birthday J!

Happy Birthday to one of my dearest and closest friends!  I know we don't get to see each other nearly as often as we would like, but I am so blessed to have had you as my friend for the last 10 years.  Can you believe it's been 10 years in August?!?

I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day with your family! 

And the obligatory BFF post.  I'm sad this is the most recent photo we have, but we'll have some new ones soon!!!

I love you momma!  Happy Birthday!

Busy Busy Weekend!

We've been running around like crazy this weekend!

Saturday morning we headed over to my parents house so the boys could go pick up her new cutting table from the Quilt Shop.  After that, my dad decided last minute that he was going to turn his car in and get a new one.  He decided on an MKS and had the boys come with him to the dealership to pick out the color.  It ended up taking longer than anticipated, so my mom, Maddie & I had to go pick up Ryan's car from Discount Tire (he got new tires) while the boys all headed straight from the dealership to the airport to pick up Trina.

We did dinner at Texas Roadhouse with everyone and ended up sitting next to Nick Fairley of the Lions!!  Grandma and Grandpa wanted to take Trina for ice cream, but it was getting late and we had to get M to bed.  Sooo...we sent Trina with my parents and we headed home.

By 11 pm, I started to wonder what the heck happened to everyone.  Turns out, instead of getting ice cream they went to a carnival that was going on across the street from Texas Roadhouse.

Today was also super busy!  I woke Trina up around 9:30 and had her try on all of her clothes to see what still fit and what didn't.  Turns out...most of it didn't:

After getting everyone up and ready to go, we headed out for shopping.  Trina basically got a new wardrobe for the summer and some new kicks that she's pretty excited about:

After clothes shopping, which obviously had to include a trip to Justice, we grabbed some lunch at 5 Guys Burger & Fries and then off to Meijer for some grocery shopping.  The cart cover won again:

After all the shopping, we came home and put all of Trina's old clothes into storage.  Yeah, they took up two large storage bins:

Fewf!  Then it was time to do a bunch of laundry & cook diner (tacos! yum!).  The kids are both in bed now and Ryan and I are relaxing a bit in front of the TV.

In other news, Maddie started to crawl forward on Thursday!  I got a little video tonight of her crawling.  It's not at all graceful, but she's getting where she needs to go!

Tomorrow is Trina's first day of camp.  And, my first day trying to get two kids to two places and then to work all within an hour and all ways to work are under construction.  Awesome.  Wish me luck!!!